We have recently started smoking. Â No, not the nicotine kind (don’t worry Mum!), the charcoal kind. Â And my is it fun. Our little smoker cost us the princely sum of $50, half price on the GrabOne daily deals website. Â I think it looks a bit …
Lucky me, to receive this lovely baking book for my birthday from my similarly kitchen-obsessed little sister.  Alice Arndell’s Alice in Bakingland is a treat for the eyes as much as anything, full of pictures of dainty plates, matching teacup-and-saucer sets, all showing off delightful …
It simply wouldn’t be a summer holiday without a little cold beer, would it? And luckily the remote, beautiful Coromandel Peninsula, the current holiday location, was happy to oblige us with the the Hot Water Brewery.
You find this little delight on the Tairua-Whitianga Road, nestled alongside the Seabreeze Campsite.
Upon arrival, one of the brewers (Allan) provided taste-testing of a range of Hot Water Brewery’s beers. My favourite was the Walker’s Porter, which had a warm, full taste to my non-beer drinker’s palate. The Kauri Falls Pale Ale was also quite lovely and I imagine dangerously easy to drink on a Summer’s afternoon.
Handily, Hot Water Brewery also has a brasserie attached. I ordered the fresh coromandel mussels with coriander salsa and they were heavenly. The mussels were plump and juicy and although I worried the coriander might be overdoing things, it was a perfect complement. The mussels came with ciabatta bread, grilled and doused in some delicious olive oil. You’re lucky there is any photographic evidence at all, this meal was gobbled with lightening speed. The Mister had some very tasty grilled Gurnard and a generous portion of delicious chips. But no food envy from me.
Anyway friends, I have more holidaying to be getting on with. Happy eating and keep safe.
Hello everyone, this shan’t be my usual post with recipe, or even a very long one – the Mister and I are on holiday, currently in the beautiful Bay of Plenty, NZ, at the dazzling Papamoa Beach. But I thought I might share a few …
Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I am fortunate to have parentals who kindly bring me ingredients from their travels, with which I can then experiment. Â And so today, I’m going to tell you all about my fun with a bottle of …
I have come into possession of two fruity items this week – a lovely big batch of stewed apples courtesy of my sister, and a tin of strawberries.
Yes, tinned strawberries, what a strange thing indeed. Â I found them in the supermarket on special for 99 cents per tin and I figured I was prepared to part with 99 cents to satisfy my curiosity. Â This, I thought, could either be great or horrible.
I find the way they look a little alarming to be honest. Â I think it’s all that pinkness and bulbousness.
When in possession of a large amount of stewed apples and a tinned strawberry curiosity itch, the only appropriate avenue is to consider  baking.  I know strawberries are a summer fruit, and apples an autumn one, but strawberry and apple tart had a nice ring to it.  Our current Spring certainly has a very in-between, mixed up feel, so I think playing around with seasonal produce is a fitting response.
You may recall that I am fond of Delia for the classics, and her Fastest Blackberry and Apple Tart appealed as a reliable candidate for my meddling.
I made the tart base as per instructions, duly sifting rubbing in butter, caster sugar, and making a well for the egg (ooh er, it always feels a bit fancy making a well for the egg).
I lined my lightly greased tin with the tart dough and began layering on the stewed apples (a bit of a deviation, as Delia asks for fresh). Â Being stewed apples, they released a fair bit of liquid into the dough, despite my careful draining. Â To avoid my tart becoming too sog-tastic, I reverted to Delia’s advice, using fresh apples over about half the tart.
Delia instructs that one scatters the fresh blackberries over the apples. Â My slightly waterlogged strawberries did not appear to me the kind of fruit one blithely ‘scatters.’ Â And so, I lined them up neatly in between the apples, which also satisfied my neat-freakish tendencies.
I sprinkled the tart with one tablespoon of caster sugar as instructed and put it in the oven for 45 minutes at 180 degrees celsius.
Although I was concerned the liquid from the stewed apples would result in a soggy base, this did not happen and some of the apple juices pooled and caramelised in the corners of the tart in a most pleasing fashion.
But what you really want to know, I am sure, is how the strawberries fared. Â My dear friend and afternoon tea guest and my husband both gave positive reports and I was pleased too. Â They held their shape well and combined nicely with the apples and crisp base.
This strawberry and apple tart went down a treat with ice cream, fresh strawberries and a glass of peach juice. Â Verdict: would happily make this again, and thumbs up to Delia for the excellent, easy base recipe.
I promised you that there would be more almonds to follow as part of my Edmonds Cookbook challenge, and I did not lie. Â We now find ourselves at devilled almonds. When you put your mind to it, there is a considerable number of food items …
Who doesn’t love a bit of maple syrup?  The indigenous people of the Americas were the first to harvest maple sap.  One legend credits the humble squirrel with its discovery, telling of a young boy who watched a red squirrel nip at the bark of a maple …
Forgive me readers, but I’m going to take a small detour through the Edmonds Cookbook index.  Hot on the heels of Almond Biscuits is Almond Icing  (yes, there are indeed a lot of almond-based recipes in the Edmonds Cookbook, and they’re not going away any time soon).
For those of you familiar with Christmas Cake, and I can only imagine that is all of you, you will be acquainted with Almond Icing, which is the thick layer of gluey white sugary substance plastered on the top of your cake. Â If you come from my family, the almond icing will also be adorned with some plastic holly and a slightly inebriated-looking Father Christmas on a sleigh with some of his reindeer missing.
It would be a terrible waste to make almond icing, only to have it sit around on its lonesome without a cake to call home. Â And so, with your good grace, readers, I will skip almond icing and revisit it when I reach the christmas cake section. Â Hopefully I manage to time this for Christmas.
Next up, then, is  Almond Rice.  What is this fascinating dish?, I hear you ask.  Almonds cut into rice-shaped pieces?  Some kind of confetti to be thrown at weddings?
Almond rice is, in fact, a rice dish featuring not only almonds, but also raisins, butter, stock and of course rice. Â I’m not really sure of its origins. Â I would say that perhaps it is Edmonds’ answer to pilaf, however this already features in the mighty book. Â I remember something similar from childhood BBQs that also involved curry powder, so perhaps it is something of a simple retro classic. Â Ring any bells for anyone?
For your very own Almond Rice, you will need:
One begins by melting the butter. Â I just love to watch butter melt. Â Yum.
Add the garlic and onion and cook until the onion is clear. Â Is it just me, or is there something especially delicious about the smell of onion and garlic when they’re cooking in butter?
Stir in raisins, stock, salt and pepper to taste. Â Cover and bring to the boil. Â Add the rice, reduce the heat and cook over a low heat for 15-20 minutes, until the rice is tender and the liquid is absorbed.
I made the most of this time by toasting my almond slices. Â Not wishing to dirty a big frying pan for only a small amount of almonds, I decided to use this cute little heart-shaped frying pan, the real purpose of which is to fry eggs with a little heart-shaped yolk. Â This was not the best idea I ever had as it was hard to stir them about and toast them evenly given the pan is small, so perhaps do not try this at home. Â But doesn’t it look cute?
Once the rice is tender and the liquid absorbed, stir the mixture and add all but one tablespoon of your almonds.
Edmonds now requires that one arranges the almond rice on a serving platter and garnishes with the remaining almonds. Â My plan was to eat this for lunch the following day, so you will just have to use your imagination with this picture of my almond rice in my lunch container. Â I did garnish it with the reserved almonds however.
This was pretty tasty. Â Definitely worth cooking with the butter as this gives it a nice savoury note, and the little raisins plump up in the stock most pleasingly.
The little rosette in the middle of my bok choy, depicted above, is not something you’d see in an exhibition-standard specimen. Â It indicates the plant in question has gone to seed. Â Far from being ashamed, I am absolutely delighted I kept something alive long enough …